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JARED SPARKS, LL.D. 



[Communicated for the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for July, 1866, 
by William B. Teask.] 



Sparks, Jared, LL.D., a resident member, died at Cambridge March 14, 1866, 
aged 76. He was born in Willin^ton, Conn., May 10, 1789. He was one of the 
many self-made men of our day who have become renowned in the land, working 
themselves upward through trials and difficulties, from obscurity to the highest posi- 
tions. In his boyhood he labored on a farm, tending at intervals a grist and saw 
mill in the neighborhood. In his native village he received the rudiments of a good 
common schoof education. A copy of the now obsolete Guthrie's geography, in 
which he had become interested, proved a stimulant to him in that line of studies ; 
and other elementary works that fell in his way at his country home, were made 
subservient to the high-minded boy in his intense cravings for knowledge. He be- 
came apprenticed to a carpenter, and with his fore-plane, broad axe and saw, 
might be seen at early morn, wending his way to his daily toil. For two years he 
labored in this honest mechanical employment, but his love of study was greater 
far than the love of the business in which his hands were then engaged. He was 
destined, altogether unknown and undreamed of to others and to himself, to become 
a distinguished architect in the temple of literature and of fame, and to preside over 
that institution, his afterward loving alma mater, which for more than two centu- 
ries has been copiously pouring out streams of knowledge for the enlightenment of 
its favored recipients. Jared's employer, with a due regard to the tastes and pro- 
clivities of the embryo student, relinquished his claim on his services. The young 
man became, at once, a schoolmaster in the town of Tolland, situated on the westerly 
side of the Willimantic river. Here he taught in the winter, and in the summer re- 
turned to his former avocation. The Rev. Hubbel Loomis, a clergyman of Willing- 
ton, having had his attention drawn to the young man, instructed him in mathema- 
tics, in which Mr. Loomis was well versed, and induced him to study Latin. In 
return for his kindness, and as compensation in part for tuition and board, he 
shingled the good minister's barn. It soon became manifest to the neighbors that 
young Sparks was a lad of more than ordinary promise ^ He was accordingly en- 
couraged by the more prominent among them, to prosecute his studies and to put 
himself in the way of obtaining, as was befitting him, a collegiate education. The 
Rev. Abiel Abbot, late of Peterboro', N. H., aided him in securing a scholarship 
at the Phillips Academy, Exeter, on a charitable foundation, so that ne was thereby 
provided with a home and instruction, free of expense. He travelled to Coventry, 
to confer with Mr. Abbot, who was then minister in that town. He went from 
thence on foot, to Exeter in New Hampshire, where the pedestrian duly arrived, at 
the end of the fourth day, covered with dust, and wearied doubtless by his long travel. 
This was in 1809. He was placed under the care of the celebrated classical scholar, 
Dr. Benjamin Abbott^ who was then and for many years after the Principal of that 
noted seminary. He remained at this institution two years, teaching school one 
winter in the town of Rochester, N. H. Among his fellow students at Exeter, were 
John Gorham Palfrey, afterwards a classmate with him at Cambridge, and George 
Bancroft, who entered the college two years subsequently to Mr. Sparks. It is a 
somewhat singular fact that this trio of American historians, should in their early 
years have been companions at the same seat of learning, and together received the 
initiatory instruction which has ripened into a fruitful harvest of results in a similar 
field of literature. 

He entered Harvard College in 1811, at the mature age of 22, a period of life 
when graduates usually have made a beginning of their professional studies. He was 
an especial favorite of President Kirkland, who was very kind to the young man. 



Eri75 



5" 



" From the first, Dr. Kirkland recognized the rare qualities of his pupil, and was 
fond of predicting the distinction of his future course." He assisted him to a 
scholarshi]), the resources of which INIr. Sparks eked out by district school-keeping 
a portion of the year in New England, and an engagement in the first two years of 
his undergraduate course at a private school, as far off as Havre de Grace, in Mary- 
land, to which he was recommended by President Dwight of Yale. While in this 
latter place it was invaded by the British troops in 1813. Before the assault he 
served in the militia, and remained to witness the conflagration of the town. He 
returned to Harvard College, where he graduated in 1815. After teaching a classi- 
cal school in Lancaster, ^Ii^ss., he went back to Cambridge and studied Divinity 
under Rev. Henry Ware, D.D. While prosecuting his theological studies, he was 
also in 1817 appointed, by the college, Tutor in mathematics and natural philosophy, 
subjects in which he was well versed, his strongest predilections at college, it is said, 
being in their favor. His memoir on the physical discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, 
which gained for him the BoAvdoin prize in his senior j'ear, is spoken of as " a master- 
piece of analytic exposition, philosophical method, and lucid and exact statement." 
The North American Review had been established about two years previous, by 
Wm. Tudor, and Mr. T. now assigned the work to several associates, one of whom 
was Mr. Sparks, who became its working editor. Two years after, in May, 1819, 
he was ordained pastor of the Unitarian church in Baltimore, Maryland, which 
had then been recently established, chiefly by natives of New England who had 
settled in the monumental city. Rev. Dr. Channing, of Boston, delivered the dis- 
course. It was the day of Unitarian controversy, and Mr. Sparks felt impelled to 
buckle on his armor and defend the faith, as he understood it, against the stalwart 
champions of the so-called orthodox views, by whom he was so strongly surrounded. 
Among these antagonists was the celebrated Rev. Samuel Miller, D7D., of Prince- 
ton, N. J., and the Rev. William E. Wyatt, D.D., of the Episcopal church in Bal- 
timore, both of whom were replied to in an earnest manner by the Unitarian Divine, 
Avhose productions were given to the press. One of these volumes on Episcopacy 
was published in 1820. In 1821, he was elected chaplain to the House of Represen- 
tatives, at Washington. The same year he commenced a monthly periodical in 
duodecimo form, entitled The Zlnitarian Miscellany and Christian Monitor, which 
was continued two years, during his stay at Baltimore. His series of Letters to 
Rev. Dr. Miller, enlarged, was published at Boston, in 1823. A Collection of 
Essays and Tracts in Theology, from various Authors, with Biographical and Criti- 
cal Notices, was commenced in Baltimore and completed at Boston in 1826, in six 
duodecimo volumes. 

After a ministry of four years in Baltimore, the physical powers of Mr. Sparks 
became impaired. He relinquished his ministerial labors, and travelled a short time 
in the Western States for his health. Returning to Boston he purchased The North 
American Review, and became its sole editor. Under his direction this now famous 
quarterly was ably conducted. "He was wise in the choice of his subjects, and 
conscientious and thorough in their treatment." He published, in 1828, a Life of 
John Ledyard, the American Traveller, which has since been included in his series 
of American Biography. After nine years of preparation, his great work, The 
Writings of George Washington — in pursuance of which he had examined, person- 
ally, papers in the public oflices of the thirteen original States and the department 
at Washington, securing the Washington papers at Mount Vernon, transcribing 
documents in the archives at London and Paris, which were then for the first time 
opened for historical purposes — his great work, 'We repeat, was consummated. It 
was published in successive volumes from 1834 to 1837. The fii'st volume. The Life 
of Washington, has been issued separately. In 1829-30, he published, with the aid 
of Congress, a series of twelve octavo volumes, the Diplomatic Correspondence of 
the American Revolution. In 1830, he originated The American Almanac and Re- 
pository of Useful Knoivledge, the first volume of which was edited by him. This 
work was continued by others until 1861 inclusive, making thirty-two consecutive 
volumes of one of the most valuable publications of the times. In 1832, he pub- 
lished The Life of Gouverneur Morris. Of the Library of American Biography, con- 
ducted by Mr. Sparks, containing sixty lives, eight were written by hun. Two 
series of the work were published, the first of ten volumes from 1834 to 1838, the 
second of fifteen from 1844 to 1848. In 1840, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, 
in ten volumes ; and in 1853, The Correspondence of the American Revolution, in 
four volumes, appeared. An accession, therefore, was made to our libraries through 
these works of Mr. Sparks, of sixty volumes of literature of national interest. 

Mr. Sparks was McLean Professor of Ancient and Modem History at Harvard 



1= 



College, from 1839 to 1849 ; and from 1849 to 1852 was President of that Institu- 
tion, which position he was compelled to relinquish on account of ill health. 

From a notice of Mr. Sparks in the Neio York Independent — a paper of differ- 
ent theological views from those held by Mr. S. — we copy the following. " Amid 
the glare and rush of American life, his career of quiet energy and faithful 
working deserves to be held in grateful and honorable remembrance. He was 
known, at first, chiefly by his zeal and vigor as a religious controversialist. But 
he had no sectarian tendencies in his nature. His efforts as a partisan were merely 
the accidents of his position. After leaving Baltimore, he was little known as a 
theologian. He gradually lost his interest in dogmas, but never ceased to cultivate 
the virtues of the Christian life." " His fairness of mind was proverbial. He 
made no enemies, and all who knew him were his friends." " If he was not the 
man to take the public by storm with the giits of the imagination and eloquence, he 
has left the remembrance of a beautiful scholarly life, which it is of wholesome 
influence to cherish." 

Mr. Sparks married, Oct. 16, 1832, Frances Anne, daughter of William Allen, 
Esq., of Hyde Park, N. Y. She died of consumption at Hyde Park, July 12, 1835, 
leaving one daughter, Maria Verplank. This daughter died in Cambridge, Jan. 3, 
1846, aged 12 years 4 months. Mr. Sparks married, May 21, 1839, Mary Crown- 
ingshield, dau. of Hon. Nathaniel Silsbee, of Salem, Mass. There are now living, 
four children, one son and three daughters : Florence ; WiUiam Eliot, b. in Cam- 
bridge Oct. 19, 1847, a member of the Freshman Class, Harvard College ; Elizabeth, 
b. in Cambridge, May 1, 1849 ; Beatrice, b. in Cambridge, March 26, 1851. 

He became a resident member of this Society in 1846. See a pleasant notice of 
Mr. Sparks, with*a list of his works, in the Historical Magazine for May, p. 146, 
written by Mr. Wm. R. Deane* 



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